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THE INTERNAL 
CHRIST 

By 
HENRY WILSON, D. D. 



"The mystery which hath been hid from 
ages and from generations, but now is made 
manifest to His saints;. .. .which is Christ 
in you the hope of glory/' Col. i. 26, 27. 



Alliance Press Co., 
692 Eighth Ave., 
New York City. 






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Copyrighted 1908. 

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CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

I. The Internal Christ 7 

II. In Him 18 

III. Christ Is All In All 32 

IV. Depths and Heights In Our 

Spiritual Libs 45 

V. Is God Dead? 53 

VI. All My Springs Are In Thee.. . 66 

VII. Songs In The Night 71 

VIII. Thirteen Hallelujahs 81 



THE INTERNAL CHRIST. 

MODERN CHRISTIANITY AND JESUS CHRIST. 

"Christ in you the hope of glory" (Colossians 
i. 27). 

A PROTESTANT bishop in a public ad- 
dress lately made in the City of New 
York, says, "Modern Christendom is falling 
to pieces by its own weight, and out of its 
ruins Jesus Christ is emerging to the con- 
sciousness of mankind more beautiful than 
ever." 

In a great Roman Catholic Cathedral in the 
same city and about the same date a thousand 
priests with a congregation that swelled be- 
yond the open doors of the church out into 
the street, and over to the pavement on the 
opposite side, knelt in lowliest adoration be- 
fore the sacrament of the altar, while the 
preacher told the people that in that sacrament 
thus presented to them Jesus Christ was really 
and truly present under the form of bread 
and wine, as the Sun and Center of the whole 
system of Catholic theology. These two facts 
may fairly express the idea of Jesus Christ as 
held by at least four hundred millions of pro- 
fessing Christians. 



8 The Internal Christ 

THE HISTORIC CHRIST. 

To the average Protestant it is the "Historic 
Christ/' as the phrase is, in all the beauty of 
His moral character, charming the mind, if 
not warming the heart of Christendom; 
"chiefest among ten thousand and altogether 
lovely." 

To the devout Catholic it is the presence 
of the body of the Crucified Jesus, to be (i) 
worshipped, and (2) partaken of, under the 
"species," as the word is, of bread and wine. 
But to both Protestant and Catholic these two 
expressions, or manifestations of Jesus, in 
their practical outcome, mean the 

"iMITATIO CHRISTl/' 

the copying and faithful following of Him 
thus presented to (1) the eye of the mind; 
and (2) the eyes of the body, in (a) the writ- 
ten Word of God, and (b) the sacrament of 
the altar. 

But even among Christians who profess to 
have gone farther than the "Historic Christ" 
school, and much farther than those who hold 
the "real presence" in the sacrament, the tide 
of "devotion," to use again the word of the 
schools, hardly rises higher than the teaching 
of the famous book of a Kempis. There are 



The Internal Christ 9 

holiness movements of to-day headed by 
noble men of God ; led by profound students 
of the Word ; taught by great preachers of 
entire sanctification and holy living, which 
at their highest point seldom pass beyond the 
idea of an external Christ, calling and charm- 
ing us to follow Him, and by following be- 
come like Him. 

But surely there is something more than 
this in Christ for the lowly soul and the be- 
lieving heart. 

Admitting at once the soundness, and prais- 
ing God for the blessing of the Gospel of the 
"Imitation of Christ," we believe there is a 
more excellent way of presenting our living 
Lord to the eyes and heart of Christendom, 
viz., "Christ in you, the hope of glory." We 
believe that this at once is the highest tide of 
Christian teaching and the deepest need of 
human souls to-day. 

The contrast between the two systems of 
teaching may be seen by one or two simple 
illustrations. 

REFLECTORS AND RADIATORS. 

A piece of tin may reflect the light near 
which it is placed. The glass surrounding 
the light radiates the light within. 



10 The Internal Christ 

Just so we may become reflectors of Jesus 
Christ by coming to Him, following Him 
closely, imitating His life by the grace of His 
Holy Spirit, "enabling" us so to do; and fur- 
ther we may in a beautiful and true sense be 
changed by thus constantly "looking unto" 
and into the face of Jesus. 

"We all with unveiled face reflecting as a 
mirror the glory of the Lord are transformed 
(transfigured) into the same image from glory 
to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit" 
(II. Cor. iii. 18, R.V.). 

But surely the deeper thought and the 
deeper life is radiating as a lamp the light and 
life of an indwelling Christ. Paul himself, 
who, in the passage just quoted, gives us the 
reflector side of the truth, gives us in Gala- 
tians ii. 20, and many another passage, such 
as II. Corinthians vi. 16: "I will dwell in 
them and walk in them," the radiating side of 
the deepest verity of the Christian life — the 
power of an indwelling Lord, Jesus Christ. 

MOSES REFLECTED. 

Moses, from whom the last text is quoted, 
was himself the best example of a soul reflect- 
ing the glory, when he came down from the 
mount with the skin of his face shining with 



The Internal Christ n 

the light in which he had been living during 
those wonderful forty days of communion 
with God. 

JESUS RADIATED GOD. 

But a greater than Moses is the highest ex- 
ample of His own indwelling when He came 
down from another mount, and "His face did 
shine as the sun" (St. Matt. xvii. 2, and cf 
Rev. i. 16), not reflecting, but radiating the 
light of the knowledge of the glory of God 
(II. Cor. iv. 6). 

A locomotive standing on the track, just 
completed ; painted, polished, perfect in every 
part, and the sun at midday shining upon it 
and making every bit of brass and steel a bur- 
nished blaze of glory. But no motion, except 
that which comes from without as the work- 
men painfully "pinch" it forward inch by inch 
with crowbars. 

Another engine is within the shed, grimy 
and stained with the wear and tear of many 
a journey. But the fire is lighted in the fur- 
nace; the water in the boiler reaches 212 de- 
grees ; steam begins to pass into the cylinders ; 
the piston moves ; the wheels turn ; the engine 
goes forward, — not by external pressure, but 
by the force of an energizing power within. 



12 The Internal Christ 

These two illustrations, the lamp radiating 
and not reflecting light ; and the engine moved 
from within and not from without, may serve 
to make the difference between the two great 
schools of teaching on this subject. 

Three words similar in sound may also 
serve to accent the difference in degree, if not 
in kind, between these modes of presenting 
"the truth as it is in Jesus" — 

IMITATION, INSPIRATION, INCARNATION OF 
CHRIST. 

For each view abundance of Scripture 
might be quoted, but our purpose is to empha- 
size the last as the highest and deepest of all. 

THE ONE TRUE INCARNATION AND REINCARNA- 
TION. 

Incarnations and reincarnations are words 
much used these days and in various senses. 
To us as Bible Christians the only incarnation 
worthy of the name is that which took place 
in Bethlehem of Judea nearly two thousand 
years ago, and the only reincarnation in which 
we believe is that which takes place in the 
heart first and then in the life of all who are 
"born from above" in the sense in which Jesus 
used the words to Nicodemus in the third 



The Internal Christ 13 

chapter of St. John ; Christmas day repeated 
daily in human lives; Christ re-born, reincar- 
nated in lowly hearts and yielded bodies ; the 
whole Christ in the whole man 

"A living, bright reality." 
the soul filled with His soul; the mind with 
His mind ; the body with His body, to the ex- 
clusion of all from each part of us that is not 
God and God-like. This is reincarnation in- 
deed, making men and women "new creatures 
in Christ Jesus" ; men indwelt by a living God 
and Saviour in such a real and vital way that 
the words of our mouth and the meditations 
of our hearts will be always acceptable in 
God's sight, because it is no longer we, but 
"Christ living in us" (Gal. ii. 20). In the light 
of this supreme truth, phrases which have be- 
come threadbare by repetition would take on 
new meanings and renew their youth. 

PRACTICAL RESULTS. 

For instance, the soul and its immortality 
would be no longer a "dogma," — "an opinion 
laid down with a snare," as a wit once said. 
It now becomes a Divine soul filling my hu- 
man soul and transforming and transfiguring 
every impulse and afifection of it. Its immor- 
tality would be a matter of course. "Because 



14 The Internal Christ 

I live ye shall live also," would be its magna 
charta for time and for eternity. "Soul life" 
and "soul consciousness" would of course be 
"God life" and "God consciousness" because 
it is Christ in the soul and the soul in Christ, 
as the river is in the pitcher and the pitcher 
is in the river ; as the fire is in the piece of red 
hot iron and the iron is in the fire, and must 
stay in the fire if it would be always red and 
white hot. "Abiding in God" would be al- 
ways the logical and spiritual sequence of God 
"abiding in us." "Asking and receiving" 
would be simply the corollary of this great 
proposition of spiritual Euclid. Our lives 
would in a word be the Q. E. D. of Divine 
mathematics. 

Then mentality. How the changes have 
been rung on the word, till its very life has 
been almost wrung out of it, and the clatter 
has become "sounding brass and a tinkling 
cymbal." 

But how changed all is in the light of this 
Bible truth. It is no longer my mind, my men- 
tality, trying to grasp and climb the rungs of 
the ladder of right thinking, and often falling 
back in nervous prostration and paresis, 
through the overstrain upon the mental facul- 
ties. It is the mind of Christ (I. Cor. ii. 16) 



The Internal Christ 15 

living and moving and having its being in me ; 
my feeble mind indwelt and invigorated by 
the mind that planned the universe; my wan- 
dering mind weighted and balanced by the 
mind of Him who thought the world and me 
into being, and keeps me true to the "Sun of 
my sour' as the stars and planets in their 
courses to the visible sun in the heavens. It 
is His mind doing my thinking in me ; His 
mind giving me thoughts not second hand 
from books, but first hand and fresh from a 
mentality stored with "all the treasures of wis- 
dom and knowledge" (Col. ii. 3) ; His mind 
not only living and thinking in me, but ener- 
gizing and vitalizing every department of my 
mental makeup — memory, imagination, pur- 
pose, plan, fore thinking and after thinking, 
prospect and retrospect, all alight and aflame 
with "thoughts that breathe," and soon find- 
ing utterance in "words that burn." 

Next and last, our physical nature. What 
a change would soon be wrought in this part 
of us by realizing, even for an hour, the in- 
dwelling of the body of Christ within our mor- 
tal bodies. 

It is hardly too much to say that if medical 
science could grasp this truth of an internal 
Christ, creating and keeping alive an "inner 



1 6 The Internal Christ 

man" (Eph. iii. 16), of which the "outer man" 
is but the casket and expression, the doctors 
would change their treatment of diseases 
almost entirely. They would begin to deal 
with sickness from within and from above, 
and not as now from below and from the out- 
side. 

MEDICAL TREATMENT. 

One of their number tells us that "the 
whole system of modern medicine fails just 
here. Diagnosis and treatment proceed from 
results and external symptoms to internal 
causes." Christianity and all truer thinking 
tells us that the cause of all disease lies in 
mental or spiritual conditions, existing within 
or above the touch of the knife, or the power 
of the drug. 

The highest Christianity tells us something 
more, viz., the man within, filled andicontrolled 
by the Man from above, even the Living 
Christ of God, can and will deliver from the 
power of disease the "outer man," and make 
him and all within him every whit whole. 

O x Thou that in our bosom's shrine 
Dost dwell, unknown because divine, 
I thought to speak, I thought to say, 
'The Light is here." "Behold the way." 



The Internal Christ 17 

"The voice was thus," and "thus the word," 
And "thus I saw" and "that I heard," 
But from the lips that half essayed, 
The imperfect utterance fell unmade. 

Unseen, secure in that high shrine, 
Acknowledged, present and divine, 
I will not ask some upper air, 
Some future day to place Thee there; 
Do only Thou in that dim shrine, 
Unknown or known, remain divine, 
Be Thou but there ! In soul and heart 
I will not ask to feel Thou art. 

— Clough. 



IN HIM. 

"For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the God- 
head bodily. And ye are complete in Him" (Col. 
ii. 9, 10). 

THE two words "in Him" are like the two 
foci of a great ellipse, the one double 
center of all life and vitality in God, but for 
man. It pleased the Father that in Jesus, as 
the great Center and Restorer of life and all 
else that pertains to life and godliness — it 
pleased the Father that in Jesus Christ should 
all the fulness dwell. 

And the next thing that was pleasing to 
God was that you and I should be so in Jesus, 
and Jesus in us, that w r e shall be as complete 
in Jesus as God is, and Jesus in God. That 
is the great central truth of the Alliance teach- 
ing, and I like to fall back (God always 
teaches me that way) upon a very simple il- 
lustration. 

LOST IN GOD. 

A man took his little pitcher one morning 
down to the river. He put it in, pressed it 
down until the water in the stream was up to 
the edge of the pitcher. Now the pitcher was 
in the river, and he kept pressing it down until 



In Him 19 

the water began trickling in over the edge of 
the pitcher, and in a moment or two the river 
was in the pitcher, and then he kept holding 
it down, until it was full and overflowing. 
God in me and I in Him so fully that I cannot 
tell where God begins and I end ; and I can- 
not tell where I begin and God ends ; that 
is the meaning as far as I understand it of 
my whole being lost in God, and God in me. 

People of God, your highest experience, 
your deepest possible knowledge is all sum- 
med up in this wonderful message. God fill- 
ing us and we so thoroughly in the heart of 
God that we become, down on the earth in the 
midst of our troubles and temptations wher- 
ever we are, in a very real way "even as He/' 

To illustrate. 

CHRIST THE CENTRE. 

First of all, Christ is the center and I am 
the circumference. The only perfect geomet- 
rical figure in the mathematical world to-day 
is a circle and a circle has its completeness 
and its perfection by being the outside of a 
great center. If the line varies but a hair's 
breadth from that center it is not a circle. 
There is a great mathematical center and you 
and I are a part of that .mighty circumference 



20 The Internal Christ 

that goes around and around, and around, and 
that looks to the center, and only just so far 
as we look to the center are we forming a part 
of that great circle of God (Colossians ii, 9, 
10). "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of 
the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in 
Him, which is the Head of all principality and 
power," means that Jesus Christ is the math- 
ematical center in this world to-day and you 
and I in our body, soul and spirit, are little 
concentric circles all revolving around that 
great Center, and so far as we keep in that 
perfect relationship, not varying a hair's 
breadth from that Center, shall we be well 
poised. 

SUN CENTERED. 

That is the mathematical illustration; now 
let us take it astronomically. When. I speak 
of Jesus Christ as the center and of myself 
and you as the circumference, I mean that 
wonderful picture that God never fails to give 
us every twenty-four hours. I do not wonder 
men worship the sun when they do not know 
the Son of God. But we have to-day a light 
above the brightness of the sun. Jesus Christ 
to-day is pictured, as nothing else in the world 
pictures Him, in that bright, beautiful sun. 



In Him 21 

That sun is the center of all the heat and all 
the light and all the power in this physical 
universe, and everything in nature revolves 
around it. There is not a planet, there is not 
a star that is not affected by that wonderful 
sun. God has placed the sun in the midst of 
the heavens and made these heavenly bodies 
revolve around Him, and if they varied there 
would be error. Do you know what error 
means? It means simply a little turning this 
way and that way from God's appointed 
course. What is eccentricity? Just a little 
bit off the center. We should be so sun cen- 
tered that we shall never be departing from 
that course that God has appointed for us by 
any wandering star. 

THE HEAVENLY CHRONOMETER. 

Clever men try to explain to us sometimes 
how these comets go and come. The astrono- 
mers tell us that sometimes the earth is af- 
fected in its course by some new star or by 
some strange power in the heavens that seem 
to affect our seasons and our climates. Well, 
I do not know about that, but I do know this, 
that there is a power to-day in the heavenlies, 
not of God, but of His enemies which has a 
strange influence upon the hearts and lives 



22 The Internal Christ 

of many of God's people and tries to tiirn 
them from the central course that God has 
appointed. God help us in these wonderful 
days to distinguish between God's center and 
the center of demons. God help us to keep 
our eyes so fixed upon Jesus that we shall not 
be affixed to anything else ; we shall not be 
eccentric ; we shall not be off the center which 
is Jesus Christ. That is the astronomical idea 
of it. The whole universe is moving in per- 
fect harmony to-day. There is perfect liberty, 
perfect freedom of action — there is no check 
upon the motion of the earth to-day in its 
revolving around the sun. That is where you 
and I ought to be. We ought to be like the 
clocks, we ought to move in perfect time. But 
that does not mean that you and I will tick 
together exactly always, but it does mean that 
you and I should tick according to God's 
clock. There is a clock up there, and it is a 
great regulator. In a large store in New 
York where I take my watch to be repaired 
there is one large clock which is the regu- 
lator. And w T hen they want to get the true 
time they do not look at other clocks in the 
store, but always at this one clock. We 
want to get our clocks regulated by the great 
heavenly chronometer, and if we will keep 



In Him 23 

bringing our watches — our thoughts, our emo- 
tions and our whole being — if we keep bring- 
ing them day by day and hour by hour to that 
great astronomical center we will never get 
off our center. 

ROOTED IN CHRIST. 

Let me turn to the earth for a moment and 
show you how beautifully the same truth will 
apply. Take the little plant, the commonest 
you can imagine, some little simple flower, the 
lily of the valley for instance, think of it in 
this way and you will see the same truth in 
the lowest spot on earth. There are three 
things about the flower that makes it attrac- 
tive. The first is its growth. There is not. 
a blade of grass springing on this ground to- 
day ; there is not a tree that has not got its root, 
the center of all its vitality, in the sun. The 
little plant down in the garden is drawing all 
its vitality not merely from the earth below it, 
but from the sun permeating the earth and 
warming it, and the rain coming down and 
strengthening the root and making the little 
plant grow up. "Rooted and grounded in 
love!" And who is Love? "God is love." 
Oh, get your roots down deep to-day, get 
them fastened around the life of the Lord 



24 The Internal Christ 

Jesus Christ. You remember that passage, 
"They had no root in themselves and they 
withered away/' I have seen it. None of us 
have been so long in this work without under- 
standing that there are wrecks and dried up 
weeds along the course of life. They are lost, 
useless, thrown aside. Why? Because they 
had no root in themselves. They were not 
fastened to Christ. They had roots in lead- 
ers ; they had roots in experiences ; they had 
roots in meetings ; they had roots everywhere, 
anywhere, but they were not rooted in God. 
The deepest thing that God wants for you is 
to get your roots wrapped closely around Him, 
not around any leader, not around any teacher 
not around any book. God save us from being 
parasites. 

TRANSFORMATION TRANSFIGURATION. 

The second thing about the flower is its 
color. Here again the natural picture is very 
suggestive of spiritual truth. Is there any- 
thing in a little garden that is more wonderful 
than the variety of color? Daisies, anemones, 
lilies, roses, all sorts of little flowers can be 
gathered in one garden not more than a few 
feet in diameter. Now do you know that the 
same sun is nourishing every one of those 



In Him 25 

flowers? The same moisture from the at- 
mosphere drops on each one and gives them 
the blessing that they need separately. Can 
you tell me why the same earth produces in 
the same little roots in a few feet of ground 
such very different colored flowers? I do not 
know. You must ask God about that, but I 
will tell you what I do know about it. It is 
the same God that worketh all and in all. It 
is the same spirit of Jesus that waters your 
roots to-day, strengthens your stems and pro- 
duces flowers, separate souls, lives of such 
varied hue that it is a perfect delight to look 
at you. I do not believe the Spirit of God 
wants to denaturalize a person. I have a 
strong feeling that God never meant to take 
any natural quality out of my nature and sup- 
plant it by another. I believe God wants to 
take my natural being and transform it and 
transfigure it. 

You know that every shade and every tint 
in every flower on the earth to-day comes from 
the sun. Whatever your mental color may be ; 
whatever your spiritual bent may be, oh, keep 
it bathed in the sunlight of Jesus Christ! It 
will not be hard and fast in that mechanical 
way that you see in artificial flowers. God 
grant that we may be sweet flowers, growing 



26 The Internal Christ 

up into Him in all things and touched day by 
day by that color-giving power that flows from 
the center, Jesus Christ. 

PERFUMED CHRISTIANS. 

My last thought is this: You know that 
there are no two flowers that have the same 
perfume. God wants us to be sweet Chris- 
tians. God wants us to be perfumed Chris- 
tians. God wants us to have a supernatural 
odor coming out from us that will sweeten the 
air all around us. Again the beautiful unity ; 
again the perfect variety that God gives us. 
People of God, let me again pray God give 
you a unity of growth in Jesus Christ that 
the plant has. God give you the variety of 
color that God gives in connection with unity 
of growth and then God give you that exquis- 
ite something that no words can ever picture, 
God give us the perfume of God to flow out 
from our being. We cannot put perfume into 
words. Why should we not have the per- 
fume of Jesus Christ? Why should not we 
be broken boxes of ointment every day ? Why 
should not we have that wonderful something 
that Jesus always had, flowing from us? Men 
knew that He was in the place for He could 
not be hid. 



In Him 27 

FULL SALVATION. 

The first application of this great subject is 
my salvation. In what sense is my salvation 
complete? What is full salvation? I have 
no full salvation until I am full of Him. I 
may be full of ideas, full of assurance and I 
may be full of communion, I may know a 
whole lot of things, but oh, people of God, in 
all kindness let me say it, don't you talk about 
a full salvation until Christ is so in you and 
you in Him that there is not room for a cross 
w r ord on your tongue, until there is not room 
for a sinful feeling in your heart, until there 
is not room for a single envious thought in 
your mind. You can only get in Him by keep- 
ing in Him. You cannot bottle it up and carry 
it away. You come here to get into more 
living touch with that living Source and you 
will never be satisfied until you open every 
avenue of your being to the Lord Jesus Christ 
as you open your eyes to the sunlight to-day. 
What God wants to-day is not an open heaven, 
but an open heart, an open mind. 

RESTFULNESS — ACTIVITY IN HIM. 

When have you got a complete sanctifica- 
tion? Sanctification is complete when the 
Sanctifier has complete control of one. For 



28 The Internal Christ 

God's sake, for Christ's sake, for your own 
peace, get on to the center to-day, which is 
Christ Himself. Do not spend your time 
reading books on sanctification. If I were 
you I would put them on the top shelf for 
a while. Look up into His blessed face and 
drink in the Holy Ghost for your sanctifica- 
tion. When I have opened my whole being 
to Him and let Him have right of way and 
full sway, that moment I am sanctified by the 
Sanctifier who is the new center, and my whole 
life becomes a beautiful orbit around the sun. 
Not worried or hurried. Lord Bacon once 
quoted some one as saying, "Stars receive a 
great deal of admiration, but they do not get 
much rest." Beloved, I want you to lift your 
eyes, not to the stars, but to the sun. We shall 
find in Jesus Christ rest. Worship God, wor- 
ship Jesus Christ, worship the Holy Ghost. 
Give Him all the adoration that your being is 
capable of. Notice how intensely restful the 
sun is and how intensely active. When you 
are filled with Christ and the Holy Spirit you 
will be just as restful as thelsun and you will 
be just as active as the sun. You will be just 
the same when there are clouds as when there 
are none. There is where w r e ought to be. We 
ought to be oblivious to praise and blame, and 



In Him 29 

go on like the sun. What does the sun do 
when somebody complains about it? Why it 
just shines on. What does the river do when 
somebody empties filthy water into it? Why 
it just runs on. 

A little story is told about President Lin- 
coln in war time. A man wrote a violent 
letter to some person that had offended him. 
This man got on his mettle and he wrote a 
stinging letter, but he was wise enough to 
bring it to President Lincoln before he sent it. 
The President read it over and said, "That is 
a splendid letter ; it is a grand letter ; I am 
so glad you wrote it." "Are you, now?" said 
the man. "Yes," said the President, "I am 
glad you wrote it, but of course you are not 
going to send it. I suppose you wrote it just 
to relieve your mind." Oh, beloved, when 
you are tempted to write unkind letters, just 
don't send them. You will be all the better 
for not sending them, and so will your friend. 
We all have our little stings and hurts that 
come to us not from the world outside, but 
from God's own people. But let us like the 
sun, shine on ; or be like the river which runs 
on and carries everything out to the sea; so 
let us bury everything in oblivion. That is 



30 The Internal Christ 

sanctification when Christ is in you and you 
in Christ. 

Now a word about healing. When am I 
wholly healed? I believe I am wholly healed 
when the whole of Christ is in the whole of 
me, just as this blessed text says, "Complete 
in Him." It is when I am so full of Christ 
that there is no room for disease ; there is no 
place for pain to get the mastery. Beloved, 
you ought to be no more conquered by dis- 
ease than you would be conquered by a little 
miserable, crawling thing that gets upon your 
person a moment and which you fling off. That 
is divine healing. I may be radical in my 
views, but I am very happy in them. I think 
I can speak with some degree of experience 
and with perhaps some authority. Every 
Christian that is in Christ and Christ in him 
should have victory over disease just as clearly 
defined and clear cut as victory over sin and 
all the power of the enemy. Christ in you and 
you in Christ. 

THE LORD'S COMING. 

Then the fourth : The Coming of the Lord. 
When am I really a believer in the coming of 
the Lord? When is this truth vital to me? 
When the coming Lord is so in me that I can- 



In Him 31 

not live or move or have my being without 
Him. Then the coming of the Lord is not only 
drawing nigh, but it is becoming a tremendous 
fact in your life, and then the coming becomes 
a reality as never before. Every look of your 
eye will be upward and onward ; every move- 
ment of your being will be outward towards 
Him, if you knew the Lord was coming to- 
morrow. That is why I like to turn this 
about, for I would rather talk about the Lord's 
coming, than about the coming of the Lord. 
One may be an abstract thing, the "Other a vital 
fact. 

Does your belief in the coming of the Lord 
make you passionately fond of sinners? If 
you love the Lord's appearing you will love 
the people for whom the Lord is pleading to- 
day, and you will not leave a stone unturned 
until by word and thought and deed you will 
do something to 

" make this blighted world of ours 

His own fair world again." 



CHRIST IS ALL IN ALL. 

"Christ is all and in all" (Col. iii. n). 

HICH CHRIST? There are more than 
one of whom men speak as the Christ. 

THE HISTORIC CHRIST. 



w 



First, the historical Christ. How much He 
is preached at the present day, and by what 
beautiful pictures He is presented to us. Men 
call Him the central figure of history, the 
grandest character that ever passed across the 
stage of human life, the flower and fruitage 
of all that is lovely and true among the millions 
of mankind, who have lived, are living and 
shall live on the earth till the end come ; the 
noblest of all the noble army of martyrs that 
in will, word and deed have laid dow T n their 
lives for the brethren. Is this the Christ of 
the text? Is this the Christ that our eyes are 
looking to, and our hearts longing for ? Surely 
more — much more — than this. For this Christ, 
however beautiful and strong and true, has 
never saved a soul in the deepest sense of that 
word salvation. The Christ of history, if He 
is only that, is no more to us in and for our 
deepest life, than any other grand character, 



Christ is All in All 33 

like Julius Caesar — a glorious heathen — or 
Martin Luther — a glorious Christian — who 
have arrested our attention, challenged our 
admiration, or our affection, as they passed 
before us in the pages of history. No, the 
historic Christ is like the historic creed or the 
historic church, of which we have heard so 
much. Neither He nor they have ever in all 
the ages changed the heart and character of 
man. He and they together have indeed 
changed men's views, attitudes, and sometimes 
the actions, but never yet the heart and con- 
science of man, simply because they are his- 
toric. The Christ of history must step down 
from the picture of Him as painted by the 
evangelists, as crystallized in the creeds, as 
taught us by the church in her best presenta- 
tion of Him, and come into my heart, change 
my life by giving me His to take its place, and 
become to me bone of my bone, flesh of my 
flesh and so press His entire being and person- 
ality into mine that mine becomes the simple- 
natural and supernatural expression of Him. 

THE THEOLOGICAL CHRIST. 

Second, the theological Christ. We learned 
of Him at school and college. We saw Him 



34 The Internal Christ 

as presented to us (i) by the fathers of the 
early church: the Nicene, the ante and post 
Nicene spiritual and intellectual giants of those 
far-off days. (2) By the mediaeval school 
men. (3) By the Reformation leaders. We 
waded through the deep waters of their ex- 
planations and definitions of His twofold na- 
ture, His divinity and humanity, and the insol- 
uble mystery of the "Communicatio Idioma- 
tum." We read and re-read the views of Cal- 
vin and Zwingli on one side and of Luther 
on the other ; or of the Arminians in the middle 
just as our early training and prejudices led 
us into one school of theology or the other. 
But all this Christology, logical and theological 
never touched or changed our heart. It never 
awakened our conscience to a sense of sin or 
the deep need of a personal Saviour to deliver 
ys from its guilt or power. It made us parti- 
sans and special pleaders for our view of the 
Christ, and intensely dogmatic in the asser- 
tion that our view was the only view, and that 
all who differed from us did so to their own 
hurt, if not to their everlasting destruction. 
It left us as it found us except with a thin 
veneer of surface religion that we mistook, 
though others did not, for vital Christianity. 



Christ is All in All 35 

THE CEREMONIAL CHRIST. 

Millions are bowing before Him through- 
out the Christian world to-day. This is the 
Christ of the altar and of the mass in the 
Church of Rome. This is the Christ of the 
ritualist in churches called Protestant. This 
is the Christ of many so-called "believers" 
who attach more importance to the form than 
to the substance, whether that form be sprink- 
ling or immersion, or eating and drinking the 
bread and wine at the communion in a sitting 
or kneeling posture. 

This is the Christ of the painted window, 
the painted arch, the dim religious light of the 
old cathedral, the reverent service, the chanted 
Litany, the Passion music and the Easter 
carol — all beautiful, and much good and true ; 
but all lacking the essential thing — the real 
presence of Jesus Christ in the heart, changing 
the character, renewing the will, purifying the 
affections, and so transforming the life that 
our faces shine with the transfiguration glory 
of the Mount of Vision. 

THE PARTIAL CHRIST. 

Fourth, the Christ of parts and places. 
"Back to Nazareth" is the cry of some. Back 
to the cradle, the manger, the home of Joseph 



36 The Internal Christ 

and Mary, the carpenter's shop, and the simple 
life of the village boy. Back to Galilee and the 
life of the fishermen, toiling, rejoicing, sorrow- 
ing, say others. Back to the sermon on the 
mount, and its inimitable teaching, and then 
the fruits of it in the valley of sin, disease and 
sorrow. Back to the practical Christ, going 
about doing good and healing all that were op- 
pressed of the devil (Acts x. 38), say others 
again. 

Once more we hear the cry, Back to the 
Christ of the outcast and the poor, the Friend 
of publicans and sinners, the Christ who had 
not where to lay His head, and whose whole 
life was a protest — often silent, but noie the 
less earnest — against the luxury and extrava- 
gance of His professed followers in all Chris- 
tian ages, and more than all in this twentieth 
century since He came. 

THE TRUE CHRIST MORE THAN THESE. 

To these and similar cries we have one 
answer: "Yes, yes, yes," but "more." Give 
us and get us back to all these names and con- 
ditions o£ Jesus Christ on earth, but with them 
give us the Christ of Gethsemane, and the 
bloody sweat. Give us with these the Christ 
of Calvary, and the shame, and the spitting, 



Christ is All in All 37 

the nails, the spear, the despairing cry, "My 
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!" 
Give us, too, the Christ of the outpoured blood 
and the vicarious sacrifice; the Christ that 
"poured out His soul unto death and made 
intercession for the transgressors." Give us, 
too, the Christ of Easter, the victory over 
death and hell ; the Christ of the forty days, 
and the ascension ; the Christ of the interces- 
sion and pleading at the right hand of God ; 
the Christ who is coming again to set up His 
kingdom on earth and reign in righteousness 
and millennial glory. In a word we must have 
a whole Christ and not a partial one. 

THE WHOLE CHRIST. 

Christ is not divided, and we must not at- 
tempt to divide Him. It is with us the whole 
or none; a partial or piecemeal Christ means 
a partial and piecemeal salvation. The Babe 
of Bethlehem is the eternal God, and even in 
swaddling clothes is the brightness of His 
Father's glory and the express image of His 
person (Heb. i. 3). 

The Man of Galilee is the Incarnate God 
and the Creator of heaven and earth. The so- 
called carpenter's Son is He of whom it is 
written, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and 



38 The Internal Christ 

ever." The Man of the "simple life," of which 
we hear so much, is the Author and Giver of 
eternal life ; and the same Jesus who said : 
(i) "This is life eternal: to know Thee, the 
only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou 
hast sent," and (2) through St. John, "He that 
hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not 
the Son hath not life" (I. John v. 12). 

The man of the "strenuous life" of toil and 
teaching of which we hear more and more, is 
also the "very God of very God — begotten, not 
created." Not simply divine, but deity itself 
incarnate, the eternal word made flesh and 
dwelling among us" (John i. 14). 

In this supreme matter we cannot have the 
fruit of the tree of life without the root. As 
Mr. Gladstone once said, we cannot have a 
teaching Christ without His eternal power and 
Godhead, as the sap and source of the person- 
ality we see in His outward words and work. 
The incarnation, the atoning sacrifice, the res- 
urrection of Jesus Christ are the threefold root 
of deity out of which all His teaching and 
wonder-working spring, and that theology 
will surely wither and decay like the falling 
leaves of a November day which attempts to 
tell us what Christ said and did, without tell- 
ing us also who Jesus Christ is, was and ever 



Christ is All in All 39 

will be, viz., the Eternal God, the Alpha and 
Omega of all creation, human and divine 

WHAT THIS COMPLETE CHRIST IS AND DOES. 

This full Christ, human and divine, is, first, 
all that God the Father is ; secondly, He is all 
that God the Holy Ghost has, and thirdly, He 
is all that man needs. 

He is all that God the Father is. This does 
not ignore the distinction between the person- 
ality of the Father and the Son, nor the differ- 
ence between the fountain and the stream. But 
as Jesus Himself said, "He that hath seen Me 
hath seen the Father,'' and "I and My Father 
are one," meaning simply that He who sees 
the light sees the sun ; he who drinks of the 
river has the essence of the fountain passing 
into his being. So the soul that sees and re- 
ceives Jesus Christ into His being becomes at 
once the recipient of "the Fatherhood of God," 
and "the brotherhood of man" in a way that 
the modern talkers on this well-worn subject 
have never realized, or perhaps never dreamed 
of. 

So in the reception of the Holy Ghost, a 
subject much clouded and mystified by many 
of the very books meant to make it clear, to 
receive the Holy Ghost is as simple as breath- 



40 The Internal Christ 

ing common atmospheric air. No more strug- 
gle is necessary for the one than the other. If 
we could only realize that in the higher as in 
the lower act, there is a sweet, silent passing 
into our being, not only of air, breath and vital 
energy, but in this higher breathing the im- 
passing of a personality as real as God the 
Father and God the Son, we should understand 
in a new and deeper way the meaning of "ask- 
ing" in St. Luke xi. 13, and of "obeying" in 
Acts v. 32. There is then not a power, virtue 
or quality necessary for our highest and fullest 
salvation in soul and body that is not con- 
tained in Jesus Christ and obtained by us from 
and through Him as we absorb His being into 
ours. 

Perhaps Charles Wesley sang better than he 
knew when he said: 

"Thou, O Christ, art all I want, 
Yea, more than all in Thee I find." 

Our little alls and our great alls will be like 
a drop in the ocean of that greater all of which 
St. Paul speaks when he prays that the Ephe- 
sians "might be filled with all the fulness of 
God" (Eph. iii. 19). 

If, or since, these things are so, the next 
step will be a simple sequence of those we have 
already taken. If Christ is all in the way we 



Christ is All in All 41 

have suggested, He is surely in all in a no less 
real way, and here we need not fear the poor, 
thin Pantheistic perversion of this truth, nor 
the caricature of it in modern Universalism. 
The way to answer both of these errors is to 
so receive Jesus Christ into our whole being, 
and so to live out His life in us in the blessing 
of other lives, that it will be manifest to all 
thinking people that Christ is in us in a way 
infinitely higher than He is in a sunbeam or 
in a blade of grass. If Jesus Christ is in us 
"of a truth," "verily and in deed/' men will 
soon see the vital difference between us and 
those who talk glibly about universal and eter- 
nal salvation, but give no living evidence that 
they know the first principles of the one or the 
other. 

But this we must do and be if we are to 
answer the arguments of the Pantheist and the 
Universalist. We must begin to "make good," 
as the phrase of to-day is. The Fourfold Gos- 
pel must become a fourfold fact. First, Christ 
must be "all and in all" in the strongest and 
most personal way. "The whole Christ in the 
whole of us" must cease to be a glib phrase, 
spoken trippingly from our tongue, and must 
become our very life blood, the core and es- 
sence of our twofold being, body and soul, 



42 The Internal Christ 

and it will, if we are only sincere and simple 
in our inbreathing and absorption of Him into 
our personality. When this is so, the old 
words "salvation," "sanctification," "healing," 
and "the coming of the Lord," will have a new 
and more vital meaning than ever. They will 
each become — if one may use the word — a 
personality, living, moving and having His 
being in us, so pressed, as we have already said 
into our being that ours will become the ex- 
pression of His. "We in Christ and Christ in 
us," another phrase we use much, will become 
indeed a fact and a fact of such vital force that 
all agonizing and straining after and for things 
and blessings will pass away in the steady, 
quiet absorption of Deity into our being. 
Agonizing indeed for the sinner to enter in by 
the straight gate as Jesus says in St. Luke 
xiii. 24 ; agonizing for the saint too, but in 
loving intercession, as Epaphras for his Colos- 
sian friends (Col. iv. 12) ; agonizing as Jesus 
did in the garden for this lost world, the 
weight of whose sin He was bearing ; agoniz- 
ing, as Paul did, travailing in birth pangs till 
Christ should be bom in His Galilean people 
(Gal. iv. 19) ; agonizing, too, in a real con- 
flict with our spiritual and physical foes around 
us ; "Fighting the good fight of faith and lay- 



Christ is All in All 43 

ing hold of eternal life' 5 (I. Tim. vi. 12, and 
II. Tim. iv. 7), with a firmer grip every hour 
on God ; but no "agonizing" to "receive the 
Holy Ghost" ; no agonizing to be filled with all 
the fulness of God, no "agonizing" to take 
from Him any gift, or grace, "who giveth to 
all men liberally and upbraideth not" (James 
i. 5). We might as well say the bird agonizes 
to breathe the air, or to mount up toward the 
sun in the early morning. We might as well 
say the fish agonizes to swim in the water or 
sink into the depths of the stream and the sea. 
Fish "out of water" do indeed "agonize" to 
get back into their proper element, but the mo- 
ment they touch the stream they are in peace 
and they move on and up or down through it, 
as easily as the bird in the air and the light 
through the atmosphere. A simple illustration 
may make this plain to some troubled child of 
God. 

Take a good-sized glass fruit dish. Fill it 
with water. Then a small one empty. The 
large vessel filled with water will represent 
God the Father, God the Son, and God the 
Holy Ghost, the trinity of glass, water and 
air, picturing to us the Father, Jesus in the 
bosom of the Father, and the Holy Ghost per- 
meating both as light does the air. The little 



44 The Internal Christ 

glass dish — empty — represents your soul and 
mine, (i) Away from Christ. (2) In touch 
with Christ. (3) Placed on the surface of the 
water and thus "in Christ." But even while 
thus "in Christ" the little vessel of my soul is 
still empty, though surrounded by a little sea 
of life-giving water. I am "hungry," as we 
say, for God, though I am in God. What is 
to be done, that the Christ in whom I am, may 
be "in me," satisfying my deepest longing, 
meeting and supplying my every need ? Some- 
thing so simple that the wonder is big people 
do not see and realize what a child of four 
years can understand. Why, simply with your 
finger press the little floating glass dish stead- 
ily down, and down, into the yielding water, 
till it reaches the rim — the crisis of the second 
blessing, as we call it. Still down and down, 
and in a moment the little vessel sinks to the 
bottom of the large one, and is filled without 
the slightest strain or struggle, and with very 
little noise, with "all the fulness" of the larger. 
Here is the whole matter on which volumes 
have been written about "In Christ," and 
"Christ in us." No mystery to the "yielded" 
soul, but much mystery and much misery to 
those who have not yet learned the A, B, C 
of real surrender unto God. 



DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS IN OUR 
SPIRITUAL LIFE. 

"come up hither." 

Revelation iv. I. 
"I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice, 

And it told Thy love to me; 
But I long to rise in the arms of faith, 

And be closer drawn to Thee." 

HITHER might be spelled higher. It is 
God's voice to the soul whether in its 
Patmos or its paradise. Heights beyond the 
heights — hither, higher — "Nearer my God to 
Thee." 

Beyond all phrases about the infilling of 
the Holy Ghost, fresh baptisms, etc., of the 
Spirit, one thing is plain to every earnest 
soul. There are spaces in all of us, vast spaces 
in some, yet to be filled with the Holy Ghost. 
We may have all the Holy Ghost, but has He 
all of us? spaces, places, rooms and closets in 
our spiritual house into which He has not yet 
"fully come," because perhaps we have not 
yet given up all the keys from cellar to attic 
of our spiritual homestead? 

Surely beyond our best past and present 
there is a future, fuller still, deeper and richer 
in its meaning and purpose than we have ever 
known, both of the Holy Ghost and of Jesus 
when He comes to make more and more real 
to us,— 



46 The Internal Christ 

"The living, bright reality." 

There are deeper inbreathings of the 
Holy Spirit for each of us than we have 
ever known. As our spiritual lungs develop 
it is wonderful how much more of God's 
higher air we can breathe in. When the 
stooped shoulders of our soul are straightened 
up, when the narrow chest of our crystallized 
experience is expanded, when we stand and 
walk erect as God meant us to do, and the joy 
of the Lord becomes more and more a fact 
and a factor in our daily life, it is marvelous 
what long breaths of divine life we can take 
without feeling the effort, and then what 
strides we can make in spiritual progress on 
the upward way. Then as these deep draughts 
of God bring Christ with them into the very 
bone and marrow of our souls, and the words 
"Christ in you" (Col. i. 27) pass from a 
phrase into a fact, how near and real to every 
thought He becomes. He comes near and 
nearer in a new way to the deepest conscious- 
ness ; and 

TOUCHES US AS HE NEVER DID BEFORE. 

For there are touches and touches of Jesus 
to our soul. Both on His part and ours there 



Depths and Heights 47 

comes a closer and more sweet contact than 
our best past has known. 

When we first knew Him our hands met 
as those of persons just introduced to each 
other. Now, and as the days go on in spiritual 
nearness and knowledge, it is the loving grasp 
not of friends even, but of blood relations. 
His hand is part of us and ours of Him. It 
is not merely the holding Him by the feet 
and worshipping Him as the woman did on 
the first Easter day (St. Matt, xxviii. 9). It 
is not even His taking the sick, dying and 
dead by the hand and lifting them up into life 
and health (St. Mark i. 31, v. 41 ; St. Luke vii. 
14, etc.). It is something far deeper and 
sweeter. It is in picture, John leaning on 
Jesus' breast at supper (John xiii. 23). Here 
is the tw r ofold touch of the deepest spiritual 
life: (1) Ours of Him in restful faith and 
sweet, sacred fellowship. (2) His of us in 
responsive pressure of hand and heart to every 
deep yearning of our soul. How the heart of 
Jesus and of John the beloved, must have 
been one in physical and spiritual harmony, 
like watches keeping time together to the 
second, or Marconi instruments, perfectly 
"tuned up," to make exactly the same number 
of vibrations so that messages can pass with 



48 The Internal Christ 

lightning rapidity from one to the other and 
back again without a hitch or hindrance of 
any kind. 

DEEPER VOICES 

from the lips and heart of Jesus to our ears 
and hearts as the spiritual life of God finds 
its way more and more into us. "I have heard 
Thy voice/' as the old verse has it; and "it 
told Thy love to me." But, oh, how much 
deeper, richer and more penetrating that voice 
of Jesus becomes to us as He enters more and 
more fully into us. 

When we first came to know Him we could 
sing and understand as no unsaved one can, 
the words of Doctor Gordon's touching 
hymn : — 

"He whispered to assure me, 

Fve found thee, thou art Mine. 
I never heard a sweeter voice, 
It made my aching heart rejoice." 

But now there are voices beyond this in 
depth and suggestiveness. Voices to the con- 
science, the will, the imagination, the great 
soul of our being, saying, "Are you Mine as 
fully as you ought to be after all the salva- 
tion, sanctification and healing I have given 
you? Is your threefold nature as completely 
Mine and yielded in every part as you once 



Depths and Heights 49 

thought it was, and I desire it to be ?" Voices, 
to«, calling to more joyful service as well as 
deeper consecration. Words of His lips to 
our inner ears, calling us to "outgoings" 
from the selfishness of even our exalted spir- 
itual life, telling us of duties to those at home 
and far away still "left undone" that we 
"ought to have done," as the old Confession 
has it. Voices from heaven, indeed, but for 
earth and earthly people around us, to whom 
and their claims and needs we in our spiritual 
exaltation have been strangely deaf and in- 
different. And surely from these deeper voices 
to the soul will come 

LARGER VISIONS. 

As surely as one of our spiritual senres is 
quickened by the Holy Ghost others will also 
be. Deeper hearing will mean clearer sight. 
Visions of God's purposes for us and of His 
possibilities in us and through us will come 
surely and increasingly to us, as the days go 
on. The face of Jesus will become increasing- 
ly beautiful to us. His eyes will look deeper 
down into our being, and ours will follow His 
more and more intensely as they gaze far 
away towards lands and people of whom we 



50 The Internal Christ 

have thought but little, and in whom till now 
our interest has been faint and weak. 

"In Thy lurht we shall see light" (Ps. 
xxxvi. 9). In the stronger light of His 
countenance we shall see faces rising before 
us out of the dim distances and darknesses 
of heathenism, that we have never prayed for, 
perhaps never thought of till now. "The god- 
less look of earth" of which Faber speaks, 
will take on a new meaning for us, as Jesus 
sees more of us and we of Him and we shall 
begin to learn the secret of His life of un- 
ceasing intercession and with Him "compass 
the world" day by day, from the rising of the 
sun unto the going down of the same in pre- 
vailing prayer. 

Then one step more we shall take. As the 
outcome and sure result of these deeper in- 
breathings of the Holy Ghost, these closer 
touches of Jesus, these more penetrating 
voices, these enlarged visions of God and our- 
selves will come 

VICTORIES 

more frequent and lasting than we have ever 
known. We fought and just won in days 
gone by. Now we shall fight and win with a 
steady triumph in our tone and heart as the 



Depths and Heights 51 

battle rages. There will be a shout in our 
soul though inaudible to man, like that of 
Joshua and the host of God, before the city 
was taken. 

"Shout/' he said on the seventh day, and 
after the seven encompassings were complete, 
" Shout, for the Lord hath given you the city" 
(Josh. vi. 16). 

These new and deeper victories will be 
over — 

(1) Sin, death and fear in our souls and 
minds. Once we said in these matters : "Nev- 
ertheless though I am sometime afraid I will 
put my trust in Thee." Now, by the increas- 
ing grace of God, we can say, "I will trust 
and not be afraid." 

(2) Sickness and pain and physical weak- 
ness will be so much more easily mastered 
than even when we were first healed, just be- 
cause divine healing will have become to us 
more and more a life rather than an uplift- 
ing, or touch of God not now so much a de- 
liverance from these things as a mighty river 
of water of life carrying us over them, or 
burying us so deeply in the bosom of God 
that we shall not mind the ripple of pain or 
the ruffling breath of physical discomfort as 
it passes over the surface of our being. So 



52 The Internal Christ 

all life, spiritual, mental and physical, shall 
more and more become the song of triumph. 

"Thanks be unto God who giveth us the 
victory," and now thanks be unto God who 
always causeth us to triumph in Christ and 
maketh manifest the savor of His knowledge 
by us in every place" (I. Cor. xv. 57; II. Cor. 
ii. 14). 



IS GOD DEAD? 

"Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your 
way and tell John the things ye have seen and 
heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the 
lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are 
raised, to the poor the Gospel is preached. And 
blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in 
Me." (Luke vii. 22, 23.) 

THAT was the message of Jesus to one 
discouraged man, John, in prison, in an- 
swer to his question, "Art Thou He that 
should come, or look we for another?" His 
question implied a shadow of doubt. And 
there was a good reason. John was in prison, 
with the shadow of Herod's axe hanging 
over his head, a victim of slander and wicked 
women. If you were in that place would you 
not wonder if God was going to let you die 
such a death? If John had been able to have 
left prison for a little while and to have seen 
the Master for a few moments, we can imagine 
him saying something like this : "My Master, 
my Saviour, are you going to let me die in 
that fearful prison ? I, who was your forerun- 
ner? I, who was baptised with the Holy 
Ghost especially to be that? I, who was born 
out of time beyond natural reason just to 
come into the world to proclaim You as the 
coming One? I, who pointed my disciples to 



54 The Internal Christ 

you as the Lamb of God who taketh away 
the sin of the world ? I, who told my disciples 
to follow You, and who gave up all my 
chances of being a leader, a preacher and a 
teacher that you might be followed? I did 
all this for Thee, and now I am in prison for 
the truth's sake, and I am going to die unless 
You deliver me. Oh, Lord Jesus, for Thy 
name's sake, for the sake of God's truth, for 
the sake of uprightness and integrity, for the 
sake of Thine own cause and kingdom Thou 
wilt surely deliver me and not let me die?" 

John longed for some word, some message 
from Jesus that his faith might be strength- 
ened, his life spared and he be freed from the 
dungeon to testify to Christ. In like circum- 
stances, do you not think you would have 
talked to the Lord somewhat like that? 

We talk so much and quibble to people 
about not doubting, but is there a man living 
who does not doubt, upon whom the shadow 
does not fall heavily, and the tear fall, the 
heart sink and the question arise, "Oh God, 
art Thou the One, the Deliverer, the Sav- 
iour ?" 

god's answer. 
IVVKat is Jesus' answer to John's question? 



Is God DeadS 55 

It was remarkable in that it was not an an- 
swer at all. John said "Art Thou the One 
who was to come, or look we for another ?" 
Have we made a mistake? Are You one of 
the false Christs ? Listen to the answer to this 
cry! Don't always expect that God is going 
to answer your cry just in the words of your 
lips. He is going to give you a better answer. 
Jesus does not say "Go back and tell John that 
I Am the coming One ; that he is not mistaken 
in his faith; that I am going to deliver him 
and that he shall not die ; that I will open the 
prison house and with one stroke of My al- 
mighty hand sweep Herod and Herodias off 
the face of the earth and deliver My servant." 
That is what we would like God to do some- 
times. Many a time have we prayed and 
hoped that Jesus would come and deliver, set 
up truth and put down error. It is one of the 
deepest problems of human life. 

A BETTER DELIVERANCE. 

But God has a better deliverance for you 
and me than smashing the prison house, and 
putting our keepers in hell and us in heaven. 
Jesus says to John's disciples "Go back, tell 
John these things which ye see and hear." 
What are these things? "The blind see, the 



56 The Internal Christ 

lame are walking, the lepers are being 
cleansed, the deaf are hearing, the dead are 
raised and the poor have the gospel preached 
to them." God says to John through Christ, 
"Thou art My faithful servant and child. I 
am going to give you an evidence that the 
world cannot doubt." And who would not 
rather see these evidences of Christianity to- 
day than that the prison doors be unbarred; 
the ears of the deaf opened to the voice of 
God in their conscience; the dead in tres- 
passes and sin rising from the grave; lame 
people who never walked straight in their 
lives beginning to walk straight; the spirit- 
ually blind beginning to see ; people filled with 
the leprosy of sin being cleansed? 

The supreme question after all is, Is God 
in this world or is God dead? I do not won- 
der at John's despairing cry. 

"god is not dead." 

Some of us mav recall an incident which 
occurred at the City Hall in New York on a 
certain day in April, 1865. The news was 
flashed over this republic and the world, 
"President Lincoln was shot last evening." 
The whole city was moved. The people, fren- 
zied with grief, thronged the Hall yonder, 



Is God Dead? 57 

and to some it seemed the world had come 
to an end because of this assassination. One 
man of that crowd, carried on the shoulders 
of his friends, at last got the ear of the crowd, 
and shouted at the top of his voice "Men — 
Americans — Abraham Lincoln is dead but 
God is not dead." Praise God for that cry. 

God is not dead. Sometimes as we look 
around us and note how many are dying we 
seem to be traveling through a cemetery. At 
other times we seem to be in an insane asy- 
lum, — so many are insane. Still again, so 
many are ill, the world seems like a hospital. 
But there is another beautiful side to this. It 
is true the "whole world lieth in the arms of 
the wicked one." It is also true that God is 
gathering a few out of the world, His chosen 
ones. We are pessimists in thinking the world 
is not to be converted before Jesus comes. 
We are optimists with regard to the present 
work God is doing. God is not dead. There 
are signs of revival all around us. Let us 
thank God and take courage. God lives! 
"God reigneth a King forever!" 

LIGHT BEYOND THE SHADOWS. 

We cannot take up the daily papers with- 
out realizing that the world is terrible in its 



58 The Internal Christ 

condition. But again, behind all the terrible 
things there are bright and blessed things. 
For instance, we mourn over the social prob- 
, lem in this city, the condition of the marriage 
relation, the awful shame to our republic of 
the divorce courts. There are shocking and 
unspeakable things going on in our lowest 
and highest grades of human life day by day. 
Let us remember that for every shocking 
divorce case there are perhaps hundreds of 
happy families, true husbands and wives, 
beautiful children growing up in the fear of 
God. It is true there are many things occur- 
ring to give a shock to our faith. Let us rise 
to-day to a plane of faith and hope. God is 
not dead. Behind all the shadows there is 
light. Behind all the unspeakable things 
there is God. When you are praying over 
some heart-breaking sense of burden and 
despair, lift up your heart and you will see 
God working out his own sweet and beautiful 
will. 

There is a peculiar beauty in the original 
of this answer of Jesus to John. It is all in 
the present tense. Our English version fails 
here. Literally it is "the dead are rising, the 
blind are beginning to see. the lame are be- 
ginning to walk," etc., and, finally "The poof 



Is God Dead? 59 

are being evangelized." Thank God for the 
Gospel that reaches the poor. It was the 
mark of the gospel in those days, and it is 
to-day that the common, simple, uncultivated, 
ignorant people hear and receive the gospel 
where the cultivated and refined do not. But 
let us be careful here, and not forget the poor 
rich people who need the gospel as well as the 
poor. 

THE TENTH BEATITUDE. 

In the Sermon on the Mount there are nine 
beatitudes. Here we have a tenth. "Blessed 
is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me." 
Let me urge you to take this verse above all 
the visible, tangible signs that God may give 
you of His presence in the world. I would 
rather believe in Jesus, and trust Him with- 
out a single one of these signs than pin my 
faith even on them. That is why I think the 
last part of this message is the best of all. 
If you doubt, He will come down and let you 
see somebody saved, perhaps one in your own 
family who seemed most indifferent and hard- 
ened ; He may let you see some lepers cleansed, 
those whom you could not believe would ever 
be lifted up ; He may unstop some deaf ears 
who previously refused to hear the message 



60 The Internal Christ 

of salvation. But let me tell you, because it 
is most important of all, if I never saw a dead 
person raised to life, a leper cleansed, a soul 
converted to God or sanctified, or another per- 
son healed, I want to trust Jesus. It is not 
easy. It is very hard. We do stumble over 
Jesus when we do not see the signs of His 
presence. We do begin to doubt because we 
do not see these things. John never saw any 
more visible signs of God's working in the 
world, a blind man healed or a leper cleansed, 
a lame man walk or a dead man arise from 
the grave. He died in shame. Dear broken 
heart, to-day, are you standing that test? If 
He does not show you any visible sign will 
you trust Him? God help you. 

I WILL TRUST. 

Listen to John as he dies. You can hear 
the moan of the prison house ; hear the sigh 
that breaks his heart and perhaps hear John 
saying, "Is that all He told you? Isn't He 
going to deliver me? Isn't He coming to this 
prison?" Have you not felt that way some- 
times? Haven't jou been there and said, 
"Lord, help me," and when the answer came 
said, "Is that all God has for me?" Perhaps 
you have thought that your prayers would 



Is God Dead? 61 

never be answered, when your cries seemed 
to have only gone up to the ceiling and come 
down again. Listen to the words. "Blessed, 
blessed, blessed is he." Who? The man who 
saw the dead rise? The man who saw the 
lepers cleansed? No. Blessed is he whoso- 
ever will trust Me, no matter what I do or 
what I do not do. Would it not be blessed? 
would not the old beatitude have a new mean- 
ing if we could get there where if necessary 
we could say, if I am to die here, die in this 
cloud of darkness, under that false accusation 
a cruel, shameful, horrible death, then, God 
helping me I'll die and trust Thee. That is 
the beatitude. That is what Jesus means. 
Blessed is he, not the man who sees, but the 
man who believes without seeing. Blessed is 
he, not the man who receives, but the man 
who doesn't get anything, but still trusts. 
Blessed is he who can, without seeing Me, go 
to his home in glory and wait to see Me by 
and by. Lord, if all the wicked in the world 
shall prosper and all the good in the world 
goes down, if the tyrant is on the throne, and 
the truthful man is in the dust, I will trust, I 
will not be ashamed, I will not be confounded. 
Ah, beloved, can we say that? Are we saying 
it? God knows what lies before us. Perhaps, 



62 The Internal Christ 

as you say, He may take that precious one to 
whom I have been clinging all my life. Yes. 
Will you cease to pray? Will you cease to 
read your Bible because God did that to you? 
God help you to lift up your voice, not as poor 
foolish Peter before the cross, but as Peter 
could do it to-day, "Though all men should 
be offended yet will not I." Though all the 
Christians doubt, I will believe. Though all 
around become backsliders, lose belief in Div- 
ine Healing, go back to physicians and reme- 
dies, I will stand true. Be true to God in 
salvation, sanctification, in Divine Healing, in 
the Lord's coming — be true, and say to God 
as you never said before, "Though He slay 
me, yet will I trust Him." If I were attacked 
by some mortal disease to-day I hope I would 
have the courage to go down to death with my 
colors flying and trust God. Shut your eyes 
tight to everything visible in this world that 
discourages, everything to which you cling 
except God. Let our hearts say, I will trust 
Thee all days and all ways, not only in the 
brightness but in the darkness when I cannot 
see Thy face, cannot hear Thy voice, cannot 
feel Thy touch. 

TAKE NO OFFENSE. 

Why? Because it is so easy to 6e offended. 



Is God Dead? 63 

It is so hard at times not to be. There are 
offenses taken when none are intended, and 
there are offenses made out of nothing. Is it 
not so? Have you not had a chill when you 
thought how some of your friends cut you or 
turned their faces from you? I heard of a 
case recently where a man for twelve years 
had not spoken to one of his relations. On 
a certain occasion, twelve years back, a letter 
was written and there was a little disagree- 
ment, a misunderstanding. The letter drop- 
ped beneath a writing pad and was never sent. 
The failure of the letter to go caused bitter- 
ness, heart-burning for twelve long years. Oh, 
beloved, on what little things we stumble, 
what little pebbles in the path trip us up ! We 
don't have to have big stumbling blocks. I 
have seen Christians stumble over the smallest 
pebbles. Pray God not to let you make of- 
fenses out of things that are not made for 
offenses. There are plenty of real occasions 
of trouble in the world. Don't make them. 
Don't create them. Don't conjure up in your 
imagination just what that person is going 
to say and do. Last week if I had left a place 
hastily, reaching a conclusion in regard to an 
important matter, I would have left with a 
most unpleasant impression. I went away for 



64 The Internal Christ 

a little while, called back in half an hour, 
and the whole thing was straightened out, 
and now I have the very best impression in- 
stead of the very worst. It is so hard not to 
take offense sometimes. Put your foot down 
and with God's help do not take offense 

STUMBLING STONES. 

There are two ways of dealing with a 
stumbling stone. If I find a piece of granite 
in my path I can stand and look at it and won- 
der why it was put there. I can be foolish 
enough to attempt to kick it out of my w T ay. 
Probably if I kick it I will get more hurt than 
the stone. That stone represents people, cir- 
cumstances, things which cross your path. 
You can stand and argue with God about 
these stumbling blocks. You can go home 
very tired after that argument. Or you can 
knock them over out of your path if you are 
busy or in a hurry. 

Or, you can lift your foot and put it on that 
piece of stone. If you do that you are just 
so much taller. If you stumble over it you 
are just so much shorter. Beloved, let me tell 
you, Jesus was in that stone of stumbling. 
You are stumbling over God's people ; you 
are stumbling over Him. If you stumble over 



Is God Dead? 65 

the circumstances you are stumbling over 
Him. He is in that stone, in that circum- 
stance, in that unpleasant person. Do not be 
offended. Put your foot upon the stone. 
Make it a stepping-stone up to higher and 
more glorious things. You will begin to 
realize that the grandest thing in the world 
is to trust Jesus no matter who comes or who 
goes. Trust Him. Look up into His face 
and see Him in the midst of the darkness. 
Listen and you will hear His voice. Reach 
out your hand and you will find His hand 
meeting yours across the path. When you 
cannot see, cannot hear, cannot touch hands, 
open your mouth and breathe in the Holy 
Ghost. God will fill you with Himself. You 
will know the reality of His presence as you 
never knew it before. "Blessed (above all 
persons in the world) whosoever shall not be 
offended in Me." 



ALL MY SPRINGS ARE IN THEE. 

(Selections from an address given at Old Orchard, 
August 7, 1904.) 

THERE is an old rendering of Psalm 
lxxxvii. 7 which is very beautiful: 'The 
singers also, and the trumpeters shall He re- 
hearse. All my fresh springs shall be in 
Thee." 

I like to think of this convention as a choir 
rehearsal for the hallelujah chorus we are 
going to take part in by and by. If you can- 
not sing now you will not be fitted to sing 
by and by. You must catch the note and learn 
the song here. We are here not merely to 
pray, but to learn this song. 

What that song is we are told in Revela- 
tion, the song of Moses and the Lamb. It is 
like all God's songs. It has its major and its 
minor keys. It is all that God has in His heart 
for us. The sorrow and the joy are mingled 
together ; the bitter and the sweet combine 
and produce that note in the soul of the be- 
liever that nothing else will ever bring about, 
because it is out of sorrow that joy comes; it 
is out of bitterness that all sweetness comes ; it 
is out of death that all true life comes. 



All My Springs are in Thee 67 

THE SINGERS. 

Who are the singers? Are they not the 
cheerful people, the people who have been 
touched by the joy of the Lord and have it 
for their strength. God loves singing and God 
loves a joyous people. You will remember 
when Jehoshaphat was going out to battle 
against bitter enemies God taught him how to 
arrange his forces, and the singers and play- 
ers upon the instruments were put in front. 
That was the beginning of the victory. We 
are told that their enemies fought each other 
and melted away like snow before the sun. 
May God teach us the great secret of a praise- 
ful life. All true prayer results in praise, and 
praise always helps one to pray better. There 
is a tremendous moral, physical force, dyna- 
mic power, in praise ; and as we see this we 
will put grumbling to the rear, bring the sing- 
ing to the front, and in all our attacks upon 
the enemy we will be victors. 

I think the singers mean not only those who 
have a song in their souls and upon their lips, 
but those who have a singing life. There are 
manv people who cannot sing a note if they 
tried. They haven't it in them ; but their 
whole life mav be a melody for God. You 
who cannot sing with your lips are qualified 



68 The Internal Christ 

for this heavenly choir if your lives are sing- 
ing. There is not one who may not sing with 
their eyes. God wants not only those who 
can sing audibly, but above all things He 
wants the singing life, the spirit wholly yield- 
ed, the silent and yet musical life. Thank 
God, there is not one who cannot have it. 

ANTIPHONAL SINGING. 

In the Episcopal Church there is what is 
called antiphonal singing. It means that first 
one side of the choir takes up the song and 
then the other, and then all join in the chorus. 
Here in this verse of our text there is a sort 
of double choir, antiphonal singing. There 
are the trumpeters, those who have to shout a 
little louder than the others ; that is, those who 
have to stand in a more prominent place, those 
who have to stand in the van of the battle and 
lead the hosts to victory. The trumpeters 
stand in the front. They give the note that 
can be heard all over the whole army, and 
sometimes the sound of the trumpet sends 
terror into the hearts of the enemy. The 
trumpeters may apply to our little band of 
missionaries. They are not many, only two 
or three hundred, but God is training His 
trumpeters, and He is giving them no uncer- 



All My Springs are in Thee 69 

tain sound. There is no discord. They are 
all true to the blood, true to the cross and true 
to the Master. We do not want a larger army 
if largeness will weaken the note or bring dis- 
cord. 

"All my springs are in Thee." There are 
seven drops of water in this spring, clear as 
crystal, which I wish to give to you. 

Joy. Oh, dear heart, if you do not get any- 
thing else from this convention, God give you 
a drop of real joy, a joy that cannot be dis- 
couraged, a joy that cannot be killed by any 
sorrow ! Sing with the joy of the Lord as your 
strength. 

Peace. This is a deeper note. Have you 
the "peace that is calm as a river?" God will 
not disappoint you if you go to Him for it. 
He gives the "peace that passeth understand- 
ing." 

Power. Thank God, we may have a touch 
of His marvelous power! 

Light. Light comes from the sun, and the 
sun is the expression of God's best for us to- 
day. Let us shine in our corners and glorify 
God. 

Life. Light comes from life. You will 
never have light in your eyes until you have 
life in your heart: "In Him was life, and the 



jo The Internal Christ 

life was the light of men." Jesus in you is the 
life, and then there will be a new light in your 
eye, a new tone in your voice, a new touch in 
your hand, a new spring in your feet. 

Love. When life and light are in action it 
just means love. 

Liberty. The "Spirit of the Lord," which 
gives liberty, sometimes helps a man to keep 
still as well as to speak, for liberty is not li- 
cense. Dr. Gordon once heard a man in a 
meeting who was saying hard and blasphe- 
mous things. Dr. Gordon called him to order. 
"Don't stop me," the man cried out. "I am a 
child of God, and where the Spirit of the Lord 
is there is liberty." Dr. Gordon quietly re- 
plied: "Yes, my brother, where the Spirit of 
the Lord is there is liberty, but no license." 
Christ had that liberty which kept Him silent 
when He was accused. God grant that we may 
use our liberty like that sometimes! 



SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 

"God, my Maker, who giveth songs in the night." 
Job xxxv. 10. 

THAT is the time we need the song. Any- 
one can sing in the daytime. It is not 
everyone who can sing at night. And be- 
cause it is night in so many places, with so 
many people, in so many ways, we need this 
message to-day. We love to think of the Holy 
City, where, we are told, there will be no night 
there. This city of New York, however, is 
an unholy city, an unhappy city, and it seems 
sometimes as if there was no day here. It 
seems as if it were all night. 

THE LARK. 

There are two little birds that are beautiful 
pictures of the spirit of song. The one is the 
lark that rises early in the morning, plumes 
its wings and rising higher and higher its 
whole being goes out in song. God make us 
more like the lark! 

THE NIGHTINGALE. 

The other little bird is the nightingale, the 
little bird of a dull dark color that hides away 
in the bushes and doesn't sing much in the 



72 The Internal Christ 

daytime, but rises with its beautiful tender 
note in the evening tide when it is dark. I 
want to be the nightingale singing in the night 
time when it is dark all around, when people 
are sleeping and others tossing upon beds of 
unrest and pain. God help you and me to be 
able to give the nightingale songs in the 
night ! 

It is song we need and not sighing. We 
will not have to go far from this Tabernacle, 
among rich and poor, to find sighing, plenty 
of wails, misereres, the wail of the poor, of 
the sick, of the unhappy, of those who have 
no rest or peace of soul or body. God wants 
us to give people songs — something set to 
music. That is what a song means, not a 
written or printed song, but a song that comes 
out of your heart and soul. Much is taught 
now of che~t and throat tones. I want to sing 
a song that does not come from my throat or 
chest, but down deep from my heart. God 
give us a song! a song in the night! 

A SONG FROM THE HEART. 

Remember, first of all, the song must come 
from the heart. No other song is of any use 
here. It is the song that comes from a broken 
heart that tells most. It has been beautifully 



Songs in the Night J$ 

said that the only songs that have lived and 
will live, the only songs worth singing to this 
sad, broken-hearted world, are the songs that 
have tears in them, that have blood in them, 
pain in them, that have come out of broken 
hearts and lives. 

There is no strain so sweet as the strain 
that comes from lips that have trembled with 
pain and from a heart that has been broken 
again and again. These are the songs we 
want to sing to a broken-hearted world. 

HER LAST SONG. 

It is told of a great singer in France, who 
had held thousands in her spell of song, that 
God took from her the darling of her heart 
and she made a vow that she would never sing 
again. Her heart was broken. On the day 
of the burial she was besought once more to 
sing. She was silent for a moment or two. 
She sang. The church was filled with her 
friends. She stepped forward with all the 
majesty of a woman's grace, and with a heart 
crushed to earth, she began with a broken 
voice. As she went on she gathered strength 
and courage, and they say the great church 
in that great city never rang with such notes, 
like a nightingale, indeed like a lark. She had 



74 The Internal Christ 

a woman's heart; a broken heart, and in that 
case surely — 

"The anguish of the singer 

Made the sweetness of the strain." 

She never sang again. It was the one great 
message that her whole heart and life went 
out in. 

"These songs in the night must come from 
"God, my Maker." No other person can give 
me a song. It must be divine. It must come 
out of the heart of God, Jesus Christ. It must 
have in it the tenderness of the Holy Ghost. 
It must come out of Gethsemane. It must 
come out of Calvary. The songs that you and 
I love to sing, that tell in our gospel meetings, 
that bring the sinner to the Saviour, that bring 
the saint sanctification, that bring healing, are 
those that are full of the blood of Jesus 
Christ. Therefore we want divine human 
song. 

THE GREAT NEED OF SONG. 

Many years ago I sought to lead one of 
the brightest young men in this city to Christ. 
He sent for me in trouble. I spent years in 
trying to help him. I called on him one day 
at his hotel ; he was in the last stages of con- 
sumption. He had a phonograph brought to 



Songs in the Night 75 

his bedside and there that wretched thing was 
grinding out to my poor friend the "Ragtime" 
songs of the Bowery. He said he was so lonely 
he wanted something to amuse him. That 
was all he had. Pity such people. Pity a hu- 
man being, about to pass out into the presence 
of God, should have to ask for such a thing. 
And that was not an extreme case. There 
are thousands of people going to be in our 
theatres to-night, Sunday, and thousands more 
to-morrow night, the large majority of whom 
are not wicked, or very sinful, but they go for 
a little brightness, a little song for their poor 
lonely sad life. I believe there are thousands 
of girls and young men who attend these 
places — to leave the misery of a little hall bed- 
room or a boarding-house, the poorer going 
to a cheap theatre, the better off to a more 
respectable place. It is a £oor, miserable 
song! There is no love or power in it. But 
it passes away the time. Instead of criticising 
them, pray for them. Don't judge them too 
harshly. Will you not go out and seek to 
give to these not the human, but the divine 
song? There is great need for songs in the 
night. 

THE SONG OF HOPE. 

There are three notes in this great song. 



76 The Internal Christ 

The first note, is the song of hope. I would 
to God you knew as I do the poor people that 
are losing hope in this city. They have strug- 
gled and toiled in vain, and they are losing 
hope in God, in man, in the Church of God, 
in society, and in themselves. God wants you 
to give a song of hope, nothing else will do. 
It must be divine. Do not go with any poor 
human hope. It will die. They tell us that 
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast/' 
Perhaps it does, but I know a great many 
people whose spring of hope has dried up and 
there is nothing for them to-day but absolute 
hopelessness. Men and women, act tenderly 
with the hopeless. God give the gospel of 
hope, hope that comes down inspired from 
heaven, "hope that maketh not ashamed" full 
of immortality, "hope the anchor of the soul 
sure and steadfast." That is what the poor 
hopeless ones need to-day. 

THE SONG OF FAITH. 

There is another note in this song, the note 
of faith. They tell us faith is dying out. There 
are people to-day that are losing faith, who 
are not faithless, not infidels ; that word means 
one that doesn't believe. There are thousands 
of people to-day who want to believe, and 



Songs in the Night JJ 

would if they could. Why are you sitting 
here this morning with your hearts and souls 
full of divine things? It is just because God 
has had a finger on you. Do you deserve it? 
I never had a serious doubt about the divinity 
of my Saviour. Is it any credit to me? No. 
Perhaps I cannot sympathize with those who 
doubt, but I want to go out to those who have 
lost faith in God and the Church, and show 
them not by argument, but by my life that 
I have a faith that cannot die, because it is 
fastened to the throne of the Eternal. You 
who have faith in a living God, faith in a liv- 
ing Bible, go out and live it, and prove by 
your life that Jesus Christ is God, because 
He is inside of you, and making you like Him- 
self. 

THE SONG OF LOVE. 

The third note that comprehends the other 
two in this song, is that note of love that be- 
gan when "the morning stars sang together, 
and the Sons of God shouted for joy." Go to 
the loveless and the unlovely, and those who 
defile the word, and turn it into lust, and 
show them what God means. Carry some- 
thin^ of the pure stream of the Water of Life, 
into the streams of mud around vou. Be like 



78 The Internal Christ 

the Gulf Stream that forces its way along 
our coast and on across to other lands, press- 
ing on through the various tides, and just like 
an arm of God full of life and love, enfolds 
that group of islands so that England is green 
when other places are white with snow. I 
think there is a gulf stream in the ocean of 
life, and I think you and I have touched it. 
May God keep us there in the gulf stream of 
love that carries everything else before it ; 
no matter how turbid its banks, keep in the 
centre of the river, let that mighty tide of love 
which God gives, which is stronger than death, 
mightier than the grave, fill your lives. It 
will carry a song wherever you go. 

WHERE TO SING. 

How can we do this? Where can we sing 
these songs? I have told you of the night 
time, of the kind we want, and of the kind of 
people that need the song, the hopeless, the 
faithless, the loveless. Now where shall we 
go to sing this little song? It is the darkest 
places that need the light ; the tuneless places 
that need the song. We shall have no diffi- 
culty to find the dark and sunless place. 

A SONG IN THE NIGHT. 

In the sixteenth chapter of Acts we read 



Songs in the Night 79 

of Paul and Silas, who were not only in 
prison, but in the inner prison, with all its 
unspeakable darkness and degradation. Fur- 
thermore, their feet were fast in the stocks, 
and their hands were probably tied behind 
their poor bleeding backs. Nothing was free, 
but one thing; namely, their tongues. People 
of God, you are not as badly off. You have 
not been in the Philippian prison. You have 
been in dark places, and some of you are in 
very hard places, but I think everybody here 
would say, no, thank God, I am not where 
Paul and Silas were. Have you got a song 
in your heart ? Has the Lord given you a song 
in the night? Who heard Paul and Silas? I 
suppose Paul and Silas did it to cheer them- 
selves. There is a wonderful power in song. 
I was a young volunteer in the Queen's army 
in 1864. I remember going home from our 
drills often tired, but when the band struck 
up the strain we would brace up, march and 
sing. No matter how weary and how worn 
you are there is a song in the heart of God 
you can catch and sing in the darkest hours. 

OPPORTUNITIES. 

Remember this also, you will find other 
people in prison as well as you, you are not 
the only one. In that very place where you 



80 The Internal Christ 

are in prison, in that very house, in that very 
block, and perhaps in that very room where 
you are suffering, there is somebody else suf- 
fering, too. And do you know the difference 
between you and that person? They have no 
song in the night. They have the prison and 
stocks, they are suffering perhaps through 
their own foolishness, an unsanctified suffer- 
ing, but unsanctified suffering never pro- 
duced a song. Sanctified suffering does. 
Paul could sing. Though his back was bleed- 
ing, he had Jesus in his heart, and he sang 
for the love of Jesus and the glory of God. 
Go sing to the people who are suffering, and 
it is wonderful how r they will hear you. 

THE PHILIPPIAN JAILER. 

When the jailer in that Philippian prison 
awakened he heard something he had never 
heard before. It was not a heathen song he 
heard, nor was it cursing and swearing. It 
was a song to Jesus as our Advocate. The 
prisoners heard the song, and the jailer was 
saved by song as well as by earthquake. Some 
poor, broken heart in that part of the prison 
had never heard the name of Jesus, or knew 
what faith and love meant, and I believe was 
saved that night. Oh! let us go out and sing 
the songs, the eld songs with new meaning. 



THIRTEEN HALLELUJAHS. 

THE one hundred and fiftieth Psalm is the 
climax as well as the close of the book. 
It is the apex of the Pyramid of Praise which 
is the dominant note of almost every song in 
it. The singer seems to gather up here and 
pour forth in one mighty burst of praise the 
meaning of every preceding Psalm as if his 
soul, like ours, who read the words after 
3,000 years of repetition were: 

"Lost in wonder, love and praise." 

Psalm 150 is the apotheosis of praise. It is 
prayer translated, transfigured into praise. It 
is in fact a picture of the growth of the soul 
through all the stages of prayer — through all 
the meanings of that wonderful word into the 
"Gate of Praise/' where petition, entreaty, 
supplication and intercession lose themselves 
in adoration and thanksgiving so intense that 
we seem to have gotten to the place and the 
atmosphere of which Jesus speaks in St. John 
xvi. 23 : "In that day ye shall ask Me nothing." 
God Himself in Jesus Christ has become "the 
answer to all our questionings." 



ypm»~ 



82 The Internal Christ 

HALLELUJAH UNTRANSLATABLE. 

In six short verses of this song of the soul in 
ecstasy we have no less than thirteen "Halle- 
lujahs." Every child knows that "Praise the 
Lord" is simply the attempt of our English 
tongue to translate the untranslatable. Like 
"Jesus" and "Amen," "Hallelujah" has passed 
unchanged into nearly every tongue of earth, 
without losing its splendid Hebrew tone and 
resonance. 

If, as Luther said, "The Psalm is the 'Bible 
in little," surely Psalm 150 is the very core 
of the heart of praise and has not one only, but 
two "Hallelujahs" for every day of the week, 
with one left over for Sunday, so large that, 
like the rainbow round about the throne, it 
covers heaven and earth, sea and sky, with its 
sevenfold columns ; and, like Handel's "Halle- 
lujah chorus," calls upon every living thing in 
every world, animate and inanimate. 

"With all its powers, with all their might, 
In God's sole glory to unite." 

INADEQUACY OF HUMAN LANGUAGE. 

Where every verse is a stepping stone to 
"higher ground," the best words of the best 
men, seem feebleness itself in attempts to ex- 



Thirteen Hallelujahs 83 

pound the Psalm. It is like a man on the top 
of Mt. Blanc, trying to talk about the glory 
of the scene above, around and beneath him. 
But without attempting to "gild refined gold" 
or "paint the lily/' it may be said that the 
Septuagint version of verse six is suggestive. 
It is, "Let every breath praise the Lord." It 
touches the thought wrapped tip in the ancient 
beliefs that in nature there is a "breath," a 
"spirit," speaking through the visible creation ; 
that as Schopenhauer says, "The body of 
things is always trying in some way to voice 
the breath or spirit shut up in it." The soul of 
the world, as they tell us, is always trying to 
voice itself through running rivers, floating 
clouds, balmy breezes, as well as in its fiercest 
forms of expression, as in the roll of the thun- 
der and the play of the lightning. Norman 
Duncan in his brief sketch called "The Breath 
of the North," gives tongue to this thought, 
"I am the wind of the North," says the spirit 
of the storm. "Swift I come from the wastes 
of death. Out of silence and solitudes vast 
and the whiteness of snow I sweep. From 
the night of the North I steal with gaunt 
death in my train, and I manage the seas 
of the North and I gather the sons of men." 



84 The Internal Christ 

PRAISE AND PLENTY. 

But there is more than ancient thought 
and modern philosophy in this Psalm of the 
Psalms and others like it in the Book. A 
glance at Psalm 148, and especially the 
67th, will show us something more pro- 
found, and at the same time more intense- 
ly practical than all the wisdom of the "An- 
cients and Moderns," outside the Word of 
God. In the latter song we have a hint of 
the secret and subtle connection between 
the praise of man and the fruitfulness of 
the earth. 

The keynote of Psalm 67 is "Let the 
people praise Thee, O God. Let all the 
people praise Thee. Let the nations be 
glad and sing for joy. Then shall the earth 
yield her increase." 

In other words, the earth is waiting to 
pour out plenty, when man begins to pour 
out praise. Rich harvests and full gran- 
aries are the response of nature to the Hal- 
lelujahs of the sons of men. Philosophy 
and materialism may smile or sneer at such 
a thought, but simple hearts can sometimes 
"catch the note" which "the wise and pru- 
dent" miss. (See St. Luke x. 21.) 

At all events, this sweet, subtle harmony 



Thirteen Hallelujahs 85 

of heaven, Mother Earth and her enlight- 
ened children, lies deep in this Book of 
Psalms. "Praise and plenty," have more to 
do with each other than the wisdom of 
men has even guessed at. He that hath 
ears to hear, let him hear, of this "tnotif," 
of the great "melody" of heaven and earth. 

JUDGMENTS IN THE EARTH. 

First, the trumpet of the natural world is 
speaking to us men with no "uncertain 
sound." 

Unless we are blind and deaf we must 
see and hear in the events of the present 
year something of forces behind what we 
call nature, that have to be dealt with in 
our efforts to solve the problems of life. 
"Lovely nature, sweet and smiling," has 
surely sung something more than lullabys 
to us during 1906. Rough-throated volca- 
noes have tried in their way to make us 
hear the voice of God, as they have poured 
forth their streams of molten lava, deso- 
lating mud and poisonous vapors. The 
earthquake has tried to shake men and 
women from their apathy and godlessness 
into some recognition of "a God that judg- 



86 The Internal Christ 

eth the earth" (Ps. lviii. n). The fire has 
tried to burn its way to the consciences of 
men through flaming cities, and treasures 
of years gone up in smoke. "Plague, pesti- 
lence, and famine" — the furies and Eu- 
menides of the "earth-born" of all ages and 
of ours, have tried to make us understand 
what sermons and easy-going exhortations 
to godliness have failed to effect. 

Cyclones and hurricanes of titanic force 
and whirlwind velocity have swept over 
our land and swept out of existence lives 
and property the value of which millions 
and billions "can never measure." 

But out of all this pandemonium of earth- 
ly and hellish forces and frightful cries of 
agony and despair there rises to hearing- 
ears the old words of the Book: "When 
Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhat 
itants of the world will learn righteousne." > 
(Isa. xxvi. 9). 

Not all, indeed; not many, perhaps, bx 
some, surely a chosen few, will rise out v 
the "wreck and ruin" of their earthly pos 
sessions and hopes and seek and find the 
God they have so long forgotten and failed 
to serve. 



Thirteen Hallelujahs 87 

JUDGMENTS IN THE COMMERCIAL WORLD. 

The second cause of thanksgiving comes 
from the commercial world. Not much, 
some will say, as they think of the revolu- 
tions of the past eighteen months. Wrecks 
of fortunes and worse wrecks of reputations 
have been so numerous and shocking that 
in a pessimistic mood we may be tempted 
to say: Mercantile and business rectitude 
has perished from the earth. But a calmer 
survey and a more balanced judgment will 
see rising from the ruins of corporations 
and companies, once accounted as stable as 
the Rock of Gibraltar, men, young and old, 
and not a few who have gone through the 
fire and the water and have come out into 
a wealthy place. "Wealthy," in a new and 
better sense than the old — less money — and 
more character — not so much "wealth" of 
stocks and bonds, but with that which fire 
cannot burn nor water wash away. The 
flames which have "burned up" and "burned 
out" reputations without number, have also 
"burned in" to some of our money and bus- 
iness men, young and old, a sense of God 
as the moral governor of the universe — a 
sense of responsibility to Him and to their 
fellowmen — for funds entrusted to them 



88 The Internal Christ 

that to say the least was not much "in evi- 
dence" two years ago. 

The Political World, with all its impuri- 
ties and puerilities, its deep-seated corrup- 
tion, affords little cause for a Hallelujah, 
and yet there are glints of light in the gen- 
eral darkness. 

Here and there men are rising above the 
dead level of venality and vote-buying and 
selling. "Peanut politics/' as the phrase 
is, does not rule altogether. In state and 
national contests for the supremacy of par- 
ty, noble souls are striving to put princi- 
ples to the front and press forward a pure 
man here and there to fight the machine 
and the bosses who control it. In the House 
and the Senate we like to believe that there 
are pure and true men, who cannot be 
bought and sold like cattle. There are a 
few "Noble Romans" in the forum of the 
legislature and the executive branches of the 
Government who still believe in God Al- 
mighty and do not regard the attempt of a 
politician to keep the Ten Commandments 
as "an iridescent dream." From the "pri- 
mary" up to the "presidency" there are 
signs — if only a few — of revived moral sen- 
timent and an honest desire to lift the state 



Thirteen Hallelujahs 89 

in its manifold bearings upon national and 
individual life, to a level somewhat parallel 
to the lofty tone and masculine morality of 
the Declaration of Independence. 

THE SOCIAL WORLD. 

Next the Social World. Is its condition 
altogether hopeless? Is there any use in 
even praying for a revival of decency and 
common morality in home and family life? 
The records of the police and divorce 
courts, not to speak of the abominable expo- 
sures of the daily press, would tend to 
make us pessimists and "despair of the Re- 
public," as the old Roman phrase was. 

And yet, "Nil Desperandum" must be our 
motto, in spite of all. "God is not dead" in 
the social world, any more than He is in 
the natural, commercial and political 
world. Here, as of old, He speaks to the 
despairing Elijahs: "Yet I have left Me 
seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that 
have not bowed unto Baal and every mouth 
which hath not kissed him." 

We should remember, ere we give up 
hope of society and the family life of the 
nation, that it is the unhappy marriages, 
not the happy ones, that are reported in the 



90 The Internal Christ 

daily press. The "scare" headlines of the 
sensational sheet, tell only of the scandals 
of society, but barely a word of the mil- 
lions of "Happy Homes" and Christian 
firesides, where modest competency and 
honorable poverty abide in the love and 
fear of God ; where the family altar is raised 
daily and the voice of joy and health is 
hourly heard in the dwellings of the right- 
eous. If in many a sad case the "hotel" 
has taken the place of "home," and the chil- 
dren see and hear little but the artificial 
side of our American civilization, neverthe- 
less, there are American homes as sweet in 
their simplicity and purity as those of Eng- 
land, so often quoted for our imitation. 
Here, too, are living in peace and purity, 
true husbands and wives, fulfilling the pur- 
pose of God in their unions and bringing 
up, not merely "an American family," as 
the sneering phrase is, but "children as an 
heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord" 
(Ps. cxxvii. 3, P. B. v.) and in His nurture 
and admonition. 

THE CHURCH OF GOD. 

What comfort and cheer can we get from 
her present condition and outlook for the 



Thirteen Hallelujahs 91 

future? Some, at least, if not "much every 
way." After we have gone the weary round 
of the mistakes and failures of the churches 
w r hen the last sad word has been said of her 
missing her "high calling" in so many 
ways — let us not forget that there is a 
bright side even to this dark picture. Now, 
as in every age of spiritual declension, and 
even apostasy, there are stars in the firma- 
ment, shining all the more brightly, because 
there is so much general darkness. The 
"Ecclesiolse," or little churches in the "Ec- 
clesia," or larger body, are to-day, as al- 
ways, the "salt of the earth," keeping it 
from utter corruption. The so-called "her- 
etics'' and "schismatics" are doing to-day for 
the "church universal" what in the provi- 
dence of God they were raised up to do. 
They are keeping alive a knowledge of God 
as a personal indw r eller, of Jesus as a real 
Saviour from real sin, and of the Holy 
Ghost as a personality, more potent for 
good and entire sanctification than all the 
combined forces of evil in the world. 

There are Albigenses and Waldenses of 
the twentieth century who are keeping to 
the front vital truths and often doing more 
with a fragment of "the faith once for all 



92 The Internal Christ 

delivered to the saints," than the church at 
large is doing with the whole. For these 
and all like them, in spite of peculiarities 
and vagaries we "thank God and take cour- 
age" for our age and people. 

PERSONAL HOLINESS. 

Our closing Hallelujah rises to God for 
Personal holiness, without which the 
church, the family, the state, would never 
see God. For souls in every place on this 
wide earth, for saints of every clime, color, 
faithful amid the faithless, dying daily, but 
intensely alive unto God, and passing life 
and light on to those about them, we praise 
God and ask Him to count us worthy to stand 
with them here in the shadows now, and there 
in the glory of His presence, and of the light 
that shall never be darkened, 



BIBLE LAMPS 

FOR 

LITTLE FEET 

REV. HENRY WILSON, D. D. 

Dr. Wilson was the children's friend. 
Mothers and Sunday School teachers every- 
where appreciated his weekly talks and Bible 
lessons to the children which appeared in the 
Christian and Missionary Alliance. Bible 
Lamps for Little Feet is a selection of fifty- 
two of these beautiful lessons,one for each week 
of the year, tastefully arranged. It is a beauti- 
fully printed book with little Kate Greenaway 
figures of boys and girls scattered through- 
out. It is also further illustrated by full-page 
cuts, some Bible pictures, others missionary 
pictures. A book suitable for all ages, from 
the wee tot to the older boys and girls who 
can look up the Scripture references and 
questions without aid. 

In decorated cloth. Price, $1.00 postpaid. 



FEB S3 1910 



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